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BlackBerry Motion Gets Torture Tested (Video)

BlackBerry isn't a top player in the smartphone landscape anymore, and it hasn't been for quite some time.

However, unlike Nokia, it hasn't completely disappeared; it just maintained a retrenched, low-key profile, and kept making devices that some people chose either for security reasons, their need for a productivity-oriented device, the presence of a physical keyboard, or a combination of the above.

However, the most recent BlackBerry Motion rejects that, at least in part, as this is the company's first high-end Android device that doesn't feature a hardware keyboard at all. (It's not even hidden as it was in the Priv).

It's a phone that tries to earn its place in 2017's increasingly crowded sea of devices, focusing on what BlackBerry does best and improving features such as battery life and software customisability instead of trying to offer top-notch performance or gorgeous-looking, borderless displays.

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Making the Motion a full-touchscreen device is a way of streamlining the product along the lines of virtually any other smartphone, but this is not a phone that wants to compete with the iPhones, Pixels, and Galaxys of the world. It still wants to be a BlackBerry, front and center — and if anyone knows that that's what they are going to find, chances are they will be happy with their purchase.

Nailing down the basics that matter (to BlackBerry users)...

The BlackBerry Motion is a no-frills handset that gets most of the basics just right, but overwhelmingly focuses on productivity and features that might be of interest to a business user, or a busy person in general.

I can say that just by pinpointing its absolute best feature: An astonishingly big, tablet-size battery (4000mAh), which was basically impossible for me to kill in one day.

An iPhone X or last year's Pixel XL, by comparison, always required to be topped up by the time I went to bed, unless I wanted my phone to die on me some time during the morning after.

Battery life on the Motion is so good that I simply forgot about it; and this is especially useful for those who plan to use the device extensively, travel, write loads of documents and the likes. The Motion is the kind of device you'd want to use for a lot of time; or at least feel comfortable doing so.